One Solace
by sing-oldsongs
Summary: Kyo Sohma is walking back from school in a worse mood than usual...the one solace in his day is that at least the house will be empty when he arrives.  HaruxKyo friendship.


_**Summary**__: Kyo Sohma is walking back from school in a worse mood than usual…the one solace in his day is that at least the house will be empty when he arrives. Haru + Kyo._

_**Spoilers**__: none_

_**Warnings**__: language_

_**Disclaimer**__: I do not own Fruits Basket, any of its characters, including and especially Haru and Kyo, or any of its settings._

**x**

It is the first day of fall, the leaves are changing colors, the air is getting cooler, and Kyo Sohma is walking back from school in a worse mood than usual, all alone. Ten bad things have happened today. The first was getting up and seeing Yuki at breakfast. The tenth was leaving school and seeing Yuki walking down the hall to the Student Council Room. Numbers two through nine also had to do with Yuki. That damn rat. Kyo thinks he's being stalked.

The one solace in his day is that at least the house will be empty when he arrives.

He trips over one of Shigure's shoes, left carelessly right in his way, and his bad mood flares up again hotly. He longs for a house to live in by himself. He just isn't the sort who was meant to share living quarters with other people, especially not three people, especially not when two of them are Sohmas. His family is too large. And everyone always wants to come visit. He hates that. They never even give warning. They always just drop by and sometimes they don't leave for days. He's found that this is a particularly bad thing when it's Kagura who's visiting.

The walk back from school has made him thirsty, and he stomps into the kitchen, angry at Shigure for the shoes and Yuki for his existence and the world in general for…well, also for Yuki's existence. He slams open the refrigerator. Fuck. Nothing good. And his dinner is missing.

"What are you so angry about?"

Hatsuharu.

Fuck.

Again.

Kyo is only more annoyed now—not just because his stupid cow of a cousin is in his house, but because Kyo must have walked right by him on the way to the kitchen and was too pissed off even to notice. (Knowing the extent of his anger only ever increases said anger. It's a mathematical fact of Kyo's existence.)

And now Haru is standing, nonchalant and easy, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen and asking stupid questions about the myriad and uncountable sources of Kyo's anger.

To add further injury to his assorted insults, Haru is also in the middle of consuming what became, as of this morning, the only edible food in the house.

So Kyo's answer to his question then becomes:

"What are _you_ doing eat my dinner, you stupid cow?"

"What? Oh," Haru looks down at the food, stopping with one bite halfway to his mouth. "This is yours?"

"Yes it's mine! I made it yesterday! Tohru's working a late shift today and she's eating at work with Momiji."

"I see. So it's every man for himself around here, then."

He says this, but he doesn't stop eating, nor even look particularly upset that he had started eating in the first place. Kyo just stares at him, disbelieving. He wants to rant and rave and maybe break some stuff, and tell (show!) Haru just what he thinks of annoying first year brats who enter houses they don't even live in and start taking other people's food without even thinking of the hunger that will necessarily ensue from such thievery.

But he doesn't. He doesn't say anything at all. Mostly because his anger has strangled him, but partly because he knows the only two results of any ranting/raving/etc. would be a frustratingly calm response from White Haru or an unnecessarily violent response form Black Haru. So he just shoots Haru (and his ill-gotten gains) a deathly glare, and then starts slamming open cupboards and taking out ingredients.

Haru watches him peacefully.

"You still haven't told me what you're doing here," Kyo mumbles, after a few more minutes of frustrating silence, as he throws open the refrigerator door.

"Someone here needs to work on his anger issues," is the only answer.

"Yeah, like you're one to talk," Kyo snaps back. He opens a bottom cupboard and takes out a pot, then starts to fill it with water. He can practically _hear_ Haru chewing behind him, and his stomach grumbles in annoyance.

"Does anyone even _know_ you're here?" he asks.

"Hmmm, I don't know," Hatsuharu answers pleasantly. He doesn't seem to hear the bubbling violence in Kyo's voice, or notice the tense anger of his movements as he slams his ingredients around.

"I was looking for Yuki," Haru continues easily. "He looked pale today in school, and I wanted to see if he was all right. Then I remembered that I was starving because I didn't have any lunch today, and I kind of forgot why I was here. Did you know you're really running low on food in this house? You need to go shopping."

"Thanks for the advice," Kyo snaps. He is still measuring ingredients, and Haru is beginning—no, sorry—_continuing_—to piss him off.

"Where is Yuki anyway?" Haru asks after a few minutes. Kyo glances over his shoulder. Haru is still eating, and Kyo has the sudden violent urge to knock the damned bowl out of the cow's hands. But he refrains himself because the only thing worse than someone else eating his food is his food being wasted altogether.

"At some stupid Student Council meeting," he grumbles back. Then he adds, at first reluctantly but growing to his subject, "And Tohru is with those friends of hers, Hanajima and Uotani. And Shigure is who-knows-and who-cares-where. I was _planning_ on having the house to myself."

"Oh."

And then, fucking hell, he hears a note of apology in Haru's voice.

"Sorry, then."

Kyo turns around and sees that Haru has walked into the middle of the room, where he is standing, the now-empty bowl gripped in his hand and hanging by his side, and his eyes staring absently into the distance. It is as if he forgot something, or someone, or himself and where he is. Kyo knows this stance, this expression, well enough from all of their awkward/angry childhood years together. Haru is thinking about something.

After a moment, he comes to stand near Kyo, and puts his empty dish in the sink.

"I should probably go," he says. "I'll see Yuki some other time."

"Like tomorrow in school," Kyo suggests, but there isn't any real malice in his voice. He finds he doesn't feel like being angry anymore, not right now.

"Yeah, right." The corners of Haru's mouth upturn in a slight smile. "You're a pretty good cook, Kyo. Thanks."

Kyo watches as Haru leaves. He came all this way for nothing. But then it's Haru, right, he must be used to it by now.

_And it wasn't really for nothing,_ he can't help thinking. _He ate all my food._

"What are you thanking me for anyway?" he yells to the now empty room. "I didn't make that for you!"

Haru is probably out in the road by now. He can't hear. Kyo throws the spoon he was holding suddenly, harshly, to the ground. "I made that for myself," he mumbles. Then he adds, as if it will make him feel any better, and even though he knows it won't, "This day really _sucks_."


End file.
